s on that day, Rosa Parks initiated a new era in the American quest for freedom and equality.

She sat near the middle of the bus, just behind the 10 seats reserved for whites. Soon all of the seats in the bus were filled. When a white man entered the bus, the driver (following the standard practice of segregation) insisted that all four blacks sitting just behind the white section give up their seats so that the man could sit there. Mrs. Parks, who was an active member of the local NAACP, quietly refused to give up her seat.

Her action was spontaneous and not pre-meditated, although her previous civil rights involvement and strong sense of justice were obvious influences. “When I made that decision,” she said later, “I knew that I had the strength of my ancestors with me.”

Today is the 57th Anniversary of the day Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat. Pic: President Obama on Rosa Parks bus at the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, MI, April 16, 2012 http://pic.twitter.com/cFaKOYDt

Nan G sees this photo as another example of the narcissist in President Obama (Photo was taken April 15, 2012, but posted to Twitter on the Parks anniversary date).

And the narcissism continues: To honor the 57th anniversary of the day Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on the bus, President Obama paid homage with a picture of himself.

I have mixed feelings.

Yes like most conservatives, I perceive President Obama as someone with a certain streak of narcissism, caught up in his own hype as the 2nd coming of MLK/JFK.

Strip his politics aside, however, and his presidency does represent a historic glass-ceiling shatter and a culmination of the Civil Rights struggle in this country. I can see how people, regardless of which side of the political fence they sit on, might be moved by what the photo represents in terms of progress in racial equality.

It would be more symbolic had President Obama seated himself at the front of the bus.

And even more symbolic would have been for him to sit in the driver’s seat since he’s about to steer this nation straight over the metaphorical cliff (both fiscal and social).

But then…that would mean taking responsibility for his failure in leadership. In his inability to work across the aisle and be a president for the American people and not just a president for Democrats.

President Obama has told Republicans to sit at the back of the bus (I think he’d rather throw them under it). And when he drives us into the figurative ditch and off the metaphorical cliff, he will lay blame at these backseat drivers for not going with his definition of compromise and bipartisanship: I won, you lost. Do it my way and we’ll have bipartisan agreement.

It is increasingly clear that the president has no interest in a deal, but seems to be intent on punishing the GOP leadership and especially the Speaker and Senate GOP Leader who forced him into a compromise after the 2010 elections. The president thinks he can discredit his political opponents by going “over the cliff,” and he will probably conclude it will be to the GOP’s disadvantage if there is another debt limit crisis and perhaps even government shutdowns in the months ahead. His cheering section in the Manhattan-Beltway media elite will be urging him on and trapping him in an echo chamber, but a lot of the GOP will be hearing the same, very narrow band of elite opinion makers’ collective fretting and finger-pointing and the president is hoping the Speaker will panic and fold.

At which point the Tea Party 2.0 will be back because the country that pays attention more than one day every four years can indeed hear the political class talking about it like some mass of morons, and doesn’t like what it hears already, and will like it even less after many months or even two years of condescending blather.

Short. Simple. A defensible line. And a stratgey for responding to a president who has no intention of really negotiating or of getting to a deal that does anything except punish his opponents. Welcome to the next four years. Get used to the political equivalent of trench warfare. The president has used the two weeks since his re-election to tell us his second term will be the same as the first. He still doesn’t get the idea that the Constitution has divided power among co-equal branches, and that the Congress is not his agency and the Speaker is not his messenger to an unruly group of malcontents.

8 Responses to “Seated at the front…”

bwax

Obama has no intention of compromising. As a typical liberal, it is simply my way or the highway. Compromise is not in their playbook.

And too, remember from ‘his’ books, he has no regard for the constitution, for Christianity, for white people and for uniquely American qualities that made us a great nation. In his eyes, we are colonialists and we owe those whom we ‘used’ reparations (recall too that he stated in the early 80’s that the Warren court did not go far enough, in that it did not address reparations). Why do you think 95% of blacks voted for him, they believe the same thing, and they want ‘theirs’.

His intent is to tear this country down! Once we understand that philosophy, we will understand his goals.

Liberal1 (Objectivity)

The history books will be written such that President Obama with be given credit for the first national health care program and allowing gays to serve in the armed forces without having to hide the fact—among whatever accomplishments occur in his second term (for example the extension of the Dream Act), while the Republicans will be remembered for opposing these civil rights issues, and starting two wars with negligible benefits to the US or the world.

Nan G

Some pundits (on the far right) believe that Obama is merely a front man for a cadre of very ”progressive” communist/socialist workers.
They name George Soros and Valerie Jarrett as two of them.
If it were true, Obama placing himself in the middle of the bus (like Rosa did) makes perfect sense.
More likely Obama just sat where he was told to sit for the photo op.
No symbolism (other than PR, credit-by-association, Jungian unconscious symbolism) intended.

Then you take that photo as emblematic of the drive over the fiscal cliff.
The shoe fits.
Obama wants to play hardball (my way of highway) because ”he won.”
Problem is, EVERY one on either side also won their own election.
Hopefully, they won’t forget that little fact.
And by being in the middle of the bus, Obama can pretend he has already compromised…..even though he’s only put forward a ”my way or the highway,” ploy.
Obama has gotten away with this before, so he knows his media will cover for him.

Nathan Blue

@Liberal1 (Objectivity): Please include the names of the Democrat Congresspeople and Senators that voted for the Irag and Afghanistan Wars. It’s not like a majority bulldozed the rest of us . . . like Obamacare. When Obamacare fails, you won’t be able to say the same. No Reps voted for it.

No, history just might have objective historians available to tell the true story: Obama was a demagogue installed by foreign interests, and the American populace was culturally bereft and gullible enough to fall for the whole farce.

It doesn’t matter what the books say–Obama is the worst President in US history, period. He’s riding on a tide of ignorant people who think they are being kind and tolerant by placing America’s social issues squarely on the backs of white, Christian, straight, males. That’s bigotry, and that’s why most critical thinkers won’t support the elitist, racist, sexist, exploitation of the Democratic Party. It has no purpose now, other than to grow and substantiate itself . . . like a cancer.

No, “liberalism” (I use quotes because the average American liberal is anything but) is a cultural yoke placed on the young, the inexperienced, the angry, the poor, and the disenfranchised. It’s a kind of mental slavery, and too many people in this country simply won’t think for themselves. They want secularism, relative morality, and an a complete abdication of their own responsibilities as free people.

It’s understood that you control the perception of the truth by controlling the presses (funny you go right to the “what the history books will say” line. It’s like you are in such deep denial, but subconsciously know it, so if the history books affirm your disillusion, then you must be “right,” eh?). I’ve living this government nightmare now, and like the Joker in The Dark Night, people, “in their desperation, turned to a man they didn’t completely understand.” That man is Obama, and he’s a sham, a child, and hand-picked Manchurian candidate used by foreign socialists (one theory . . . history will reveal what the hell happened here, that’s for sure.).

What will the history books say? It depends on whose writing them, and tyranny has a way of writing it’s way into “history” (see dumb photo above).

Hard Right

ilovebeeswarzone

WHO would have think that it could happen in AMERICA,
and now the other half don’t know how to tolerantly get rid of the problem,
any clues? anything? anybody?
calling once, calling twice, ca ll ing, callin, call, ca, c, ….